


can you imagine

by cattlaydee



Series: i could never forget [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Family Drama, Horses, M/M, Makeup Sex, Reconciliation for real this time, Romantic Gestures, Second Chances, Sequel, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 04:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12380874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattlaydee/pseuds/cattlaydee
Summary: Shortly after "i could never forget"----Alexander tries to get George back. George reflects.





	can you imagine

**Author's Note:**

> i'm tired of writing sad, dramatic things. this is still dramatic but...hopefully happy? idk idk.
> 
> you should read "i could never forget" before this. if you don't, the gist is, Alex cheated on George and they broke up for a bit and this is him trying to get George back.

George has been thinking a lot about his family lately.

He’s not sure what has precipitated it. Perhaps it’s that, for the first time in a long time, George isn’t exactly taking the high road. Perhaps it’s that his actions and emotions are, for the first time in a long time, barely restrained like a rabid animal on a leash.

He’d get in fights a lot in junior high and high school. Was good with his lessons and homework, but would often get tapped for brawling on the blacktop after school or during lunch. Often in detention, sometimes his mother wouldn’t even look at him for the skirmishes. His father’s death when he was 11 had turned his mother what some would see as harsh and uncaring, but in the face of raising the 5 children alone that he’d left behind for her, George wasn’t sure he could completely blame her.

The others fell in line. George tried to, but sometimes her demands seemed so unreasonable to him. You will work in the family’s store as soon as you turned 16, she’d told him many a time, referring to the business his own father had inherited. You will become a manager. You will run it. As the eldest of her brood, she expected nothing but obedience without question, but George was loathe to just fall in line. 

George thanks God her brood was not his father’s only.

Lawrence had been relief from what George had considered a great and heavy weight with only one road towards his future. Lawrence, ten years his senior, had come back from the Middle East with a smile and an open hand and it hadn’t taken long for George to decide he would follow his older half-brother wherever he’d wanted him to go. The only difference between Lawrence and his mother was that Lawrence wasn’t going to make that decision for him.

“Your mother and I don’t exactly get along, so I don’t want to overstep my bounds.” Lawrence had told him. “But if you’re willing to work hard for what you want, you’ll always have my support, and I’ll do what I can to advocate for you.”

And that Lawrence did. When George tried out for the school football team, it was Lawrence who convinced his mother that George could balance school and extracurriculars, it was Lawrence who had taken responsibility for making sure he stuck to it. It was Lawrence who would let him escape to the property he’d inherited from their father for the summers and breaks throughout school, a safe place where he could mentor his younger half-brother and also allotted the younger man the freedom he so desperately seemed to need. 

It was Lawrence and his support that helped George stop feeling so out of control, the invisible guide that taught George how to control his temper, to harness that passion for something more productive than schoolyard brawls. 

But Lawrence had died, nearly 20 years gone now. The lessons he’d instilled in George had helped to guide his ill temper most of the times as it threatened to overtake him, but as of late, George felt as if he may lose this battle. 

Work hasn’t been great. There’s a few deals on the table to acquire some smaller tech companies that have his snags. It’s closing in on the fall and the end of the year is always stressful. And then, what he’s doing with Alex doesn't help at all; in fact, it’s probably more counterproductive.

He knows it needs to end if it’s not going to go anywhere. He angry at himself because he can’t seem to just walk away. DIsmiss the younger man as easily as he was dismissed by Alex years before. But he cannot seem to bring himself to delete his number from his phone. Alex is trying and he can’t help but wonder, guiltily, if he’s stringing Alex along to torture him. The struggle he’s finding, as the kids say, is real.

It’s driving him slowly insane. For the first time in a long time, the feeling of helplessness and rage is back in his chest. And he’s not quite sure what to do about it.

 

* * *

 

George’s phone beeps, signaling a voicemail, and when he pokes at the home screen to look, he rolls his eyes to see who it’s from.

_ 1 Voicemail. 3 missed calls from Alex _

He sighs. It’s been a few months since their reconciliation after years apart, and they’ve seen each other sparingly. A lunch here, a quickie there, all moments in which Alex works to needle George open back up to him, and all with George dismissing him out of hand. If they ate, George made sure it was platonic and uninteresting. If they hooked up, George made sure it was never at his place and that, on most mornings, he was gone before Alexander was awake. 

He thumbs into his phone and sees a few texts from Alex as well, asking him to call when he gets the chance.

George decides not to delete the voicemail without listening to it. “I have this work thing, the first weekend in October. I know...look, i know things have been weird, but I wanted to ask if you wanted to come? It’s up around Albany, I can drive. I just...i don’t really want to go alone…..”

His lips twitch as he listens to Alex’s message. He can just imagine Alex tugging at the strands of his hair, pacing back and forth in front of his kitchen cabinets, maybe even rehearsing. He knows that this is not easy for Alex, that he has not made it easy at all of Alex, and a large part of him is not sorry in the least for that.

He sets his phone down and looks at it. He walks into his kitchen and grabs some water and heads to his living room. West Point, his alma mater, is about to kickoff for the day against Notre Dame and zoning out a little will help him clear his head.

The game goes fast, and it’s close until the 4th quarter when the Army pulls ahead and wins by a touchdown. By now, George has gone through his water, and there’s a leftover apple core sitting next to him as well. He gets up, he stretches and as he walks into the kitchen and throws the remnants of his snack away, he picks up his phone.

There’s no new messages.

“Hm.” George hums, grabbing the phone. He thumbs through his missed calls and presses Alex’s number, and leans against the granite countertop as he waits.

“...Hello?” Alex stutters, sounding breathless. “George?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”

“Hey! Hey, I was...hoping i’d hear from you.” George hears shuffling on the other side of the phone, the close of a door. “You catch the Army-Notre Dame game?”

George smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was a good one.” He pauses, clears his throat. “So uh...I got your message. About upstate.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And I think it’d be good. To get out of town for a weekend.”

“That’s awesome, George! Thank you so much, I promise---”

“But this is just a platonic, friends thing, Alex.” George cuts in, rubbing his thumb absentmindedly on the countertop. “I don’t want you getting the wrong idea.”

 _And why would he,_ George thinks to himself. _You’ve just been fucking him off and on for the past three months._

There’s a moment of silence and then a sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, no I totally understand. I mean, I already booked a hotel---like it won’t get done until later in the afternoon, so I hope that’s okay---and I’m getting two Queens, so we’ll be good.” A pause. “You okay with that?”

“Yeah. Yeah sounds fine. It’ll be good to get away.”

“Awesome. Awesome. Well, we can talk about it when it gets closer or...whatever. We’ll figure it out.”

“Sounds good. I have to go, Alex, but I will talk to you later, alright?”

“Oh.” George doesn’t miss the disappointment in his tone. “Okay, yeah. For sure. Let me know about this weekend. I’ll talk to you then.”

“Sounds good. Have a good week, Alex.”

“You too.”

George slides the phone onto the counter and sighs.

This is, given his current mental state, not the greatest of ideas.

And yet. He’s gonna do it anyway.

* * *

Alex picks him up for the weekend away early in the morning, earlier than George knows Alex is accustomed to being awake.

But he’s up. Bright eyed, bushy tailed, his own bag neatly in the back when George goes to drop his duffel. It’s only about a 3 or 4 hour drive north, and they have music, and it’s been a few weeks since they’ve hooked up, so at least they’ll have something to talk about. George isn’t even sure what the event is, but it’s always good to keep an ear to the ground when dealing with others in the industry and at the very least, he’s getting a free weekend away out of it.

Alex mentions that he has to stop somewhere for something about halfway through. George pays little mind to it, assuming it has something to do with a colleague or a deal. He finds he is wrong on both accounts.

Alex’s Camry pulls onto some back roads that turn to dirt after about 15 minutes or so. George grabs onto the “oh shit” handle when it starts to get bumpy, shooting looks occassionally at Alex as he continues on, but Alex just smiles and tells him they’re fine. Eventually they pull up to what looks like a ranch---wooden posts and fencing beneath an arched sign that declares the place a farm. George looks over at Alex questioningly in the car, but Alex won’t look back at him. Instead, he climbs out of the car and towards what must be an office building. When he emerges and returns, there's a key in his hand and he climbs back in the car and takes it back over closer to what looks like a barn. The doors are opened, and George can see from where the car parks that there are stables. When he looks around, surveying the property more, he sees horses.    
  
“I know that you really liked riding, but I know that you stopped going a lot after…” Alex shifts. “After your brother passed away. And so I thought…” He trails off with a shrug, and gets out of the car. He ducks his head back in, giving George a goofy smile. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to, it wasn’t a lot, but I mean. We are here..."

George doesn't say anything. He climbs out of the car and steps into dried mud and grimaces. He's wearing tennis shoes, but they're his nice pair, and he looks over the hood of the car at Alex, who's already moving towards the pasture, and he follows him.

“You hate horses, Alex.” George says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Because it was. “You used to call them….what? ‘Unrestrained, unpredictable hellbeasts’?”

“I’m on the small side, they’re very intimidating.” Alex grumbles, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Look, i’ve spent some time around them lately, and they’re not that bad. The first few lessons were a little touch and go, but I kinda like the bay they’ve had me on…”

George is stunned. “Lessons?”

Alex grins at the surprised tone. “Once every other week for the past few months. Ol’ Cinnamon and I have gotten to be quite the pair.” He snorts. “Seriously, you’d think they’d be able to come up with better names for these animals if they took a little bit of time…”

“Alex.” George interrupts. “What are we doing here then?”

Alex sobers. “I um...I thought we could go for a trail ride and maybe, I don’t know, eat something? I packed some like, wine that I know you like, and some ham and cheese and other stuff, I don’t know…” He runs his hand over his hair with one hand still stuffed in his pocket, looking up at George sheepishly. “This is stupid isn’t it? This is like, terrible and cliche, and I totally should have like, asked…”

“I don’t think it’s stupid.” George replies softly. But it’s obvious what Alex is doing. What Alex has been trying to do for months, and although George has been pushing back and trying to avoid it, he can’t help but admit he’s missed this type of stuff with Alex. “You did all of this to take me on a picnic?”

“You’ve seemed a little...stressed lately. And at first, I thought maybe that was my fault? But I mean, we’re still hanging out so then I thought, maybe it was work or like, the general everyday news because, I mean, who isn’t a little tired…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I thought it may be good to get away from the city and just...unplug.”

George realizes something. “There’s no work thing.”

And Alex, he flushes and looks incredibly guilty and sheepish. He ducks his head and looks away. “There’s no work thing.”

George should get mad. Alex **lied** to him, drove him two hours outside of the city for a weekend getaway under the guise they were heading somewhere completely different for a work event, and it’s manipulative. It’s just _like_ him, and it’s selfish of Alex, and arrogant to assume George would be okay with it just because----

George turns when he hears a soft nicker behind him. He can tell the pasture fence has been freshly painted a deep red, and the area around the fence posts are obviously well tended. In fact, the entire place is well tended.

There’s a black mare hanging it’s head over the side of the rails, and as he turns to face it, it begins to throw it’s head up and down in some kind of greeting, shaking it after with a snort. Alex laughs behind him and then starts towards the animal with almost a skip in his step, reaching out to scratch at it’s nose.

“This is Harley.” Alex tells George when he moves closer. “She’s like, 10, I think? She’s sweet but she’s a little...advanced for me. Likes to run a lot.”

George wonders, with some sense of amusement, if there’s more to that story.

“I think she wants some cookies.” Alex continues, looking up at George, who has reached out to rub the soft skin of the horse’s snout himself. When George frowns in confusion, Alex shrugs. “They’re like these, vitamin oat snack thingys. They’re in the barn.” He pauses, looking back at the horse before back up at George. “You wanna come grab some with me before we saddle up? You can take Harley here, and I’ll take the bay?”

George assumes the bay is stabled, but he understand that a yes means, let’s do this. A yes means, I’m going to let you take me on this date, because this is for sure a date. A yes means George is considering really trying again.

He let’s his fingers ghost over the horses dark mane before dropping a hand to his side. She snorts again and he laughs. “We should grab them before she gets too impatient. Wouldn’t want her and I to get off on the wrong hoof now, right?”

“That is the worst thing I have ever heard.” Alex replies, but he still snorts a laugh as he shakes his head.  He starts towards the barn with a bounce.

George follows.

* * *

They end up near a lake. They dispute for a few minutes, whether it is actually a lake---at first, George calls it a large pond, but then Alex launches into an explanation that, no, no, the owners of the place had this made specifically as a lake, that it’s too deep to be considered a pond, and there? Do you see that there, George, the shoreline? The way the water laps?

“So yeah,” Alex shrugs, peeling a piece of his sandwich off and tossing it in his mouth, chewing. “It’s a lake.”

“Fine, fine. It’s a lake.” George assents, leaning back on the blanket Alex has laid out. It’s thin and they have it held down with a few rocks they found near the trees where the horses are tied and grazing at the ground. Their tails whip through the air, snapping at flies and other pests as they shuffle and snort.

George glances over at Alex, who has one leg stretched out, the other bent towards him, resting his arm. Between them is a plugged bottle of white wine, with two stemless half filled glasses. Nothing too too fancy---turkey sandwiches, cheese and fruit.

“You seem to know a lot about this place.” George finally comments, popping a grape into his mouth. Alex shrugs.

“Like i said, i’ve been out here a lot the past few months. The owners are super nice people too.”

“I couldn’t get you on a horse to save my life.” George says with a small grin. “Even just the idea…”

“Yeah well…” Alex looks over at him, squinting into the sun. “I figured if I was gonna try and get you to give me another chance, I was gonna have to put some time behind it.” He tilts his head, and because he was who he was---direct, to the point---he asks, “Did it work?”

George doesn’t rush to answer. There’s a lot of baggage there. Aside from the obvious infidelity related stuff, Alex is still so much younger than him. It was always something George thought about---a few years was nothing but 20 some odd was a lot, and Alex was still young enough that he didn’t know what he really would want; what if he hit 40 and decided against that? What if George got older, and changed, and Alex decided to bail again, for some younger, better person? He’d certainly done it before.

“I really don’t know, Alex.” George answers honestly. “You know, there’s a lot that’s happened, and it’s not just how it ended last time, it’s…” He sighs. “I just don’t know. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you.”

Alex’s shoulder sag a little, unable to hide the disappointment. “I understand. I just...I don’t know if we can keep doing what we’re doing unless we move forward, and I don’t want to lose you.” He leans back against the tree they’re under. “Did you at least have fun today?”

He had, and he told Alex so. “I haven’t been on a horse in…” George made a noise, trying to remember. It would’ve probably been a year or so ago, after their breakup, visiting his sister-in-law and his brothers’ two now grown children, whom he’d missed terribly. A trail ride on a mare he wasn’t familiar with, but had a good disposition. “Over a year.” He glances back at where their two rides for the day are tied up. “I do miss it though.”

“Have you ever thought about moving closer to Anne?”

George shakes his head. “No, I’m happy in New York. Anne and I have my brother in common but little else.” He shrugs. “It’s nice that she keeps me in mind, though, for the farm. I know i’m always welcome there.”

“That’s good.” Alex turns back towards the water, and George can see he’s picked up a rock, watches as he rubs his finger along its sharp edge. “I’ve always liked her.”

Alex stands, and walks to the edge of the water. He waits for a moment, fidgeting in the sun. George can only watch as he reaches his arm back and flings the rock across the water. It bounces twice, then sinks below the surface. When he turns back, he’s half smiling, a little bashful.

“Eh. You win some, you lose some. Right?” He squints in the light, looking over at the horses as well. “We should pack up soon. Sun’s gonna start to set.”

As he says it, George realizes he’s not quite ready to leave. This day...it’s nice. The bluffs rise on either side of the lake, and they couldn’t have asked for better weather. But Alex is not wrong; it will take them at least two hours to get back to the ranch, and by then it will be dusk. He sits up as well, starting to help pack up their wares.

Everything, he supposes, has to end sometime.

* * *

 

They get to the hotel around sunset. It’s not far from the ranch, and it’s nice---not some hokey bed and breakfast George had been worried about. Alex could talk a big game, but George knew he’d had a soft spot for such places. When they get to the room, he’s relieved not only to find the two separate beds, but also the pullout couch in the front of the room.

Alex begs off to the bathroom, and George drops his bag on the ground near the door, doing a cursory room check before settling in front of the mirror as Alex does what he needs. He stares at himself, frowns at the dirt on the collar of his shirt, at the sweat that he can tell has dried there.

Alex comes out, avoiding his gaze, throwing his own bag on one of the beds and George takes his place. He washes his hands and stares into the bathroom mirror, and thinks to himself that a shower is really what he needs. Thinks he should just jump in now. Change and go right to bed. No questions asked. 

But instead, he stares into the mirror. His stomach is uneasy.

George had told Alex once, when they were together, that riding with Lawrence was always a good way for him to recenter, to get back on track. That the trail rides were never the same, though, after his brother had died and that was why he didn’t go anymore.

While his stomach may be in knots, the manic sensation in his chest, the itch of anxiety, he realizes very suddenly, is gone.

Alex has always been a thing that makes his world stop. Always been this thing that helps him recalibrate. Maybe that why he couldn’t just walk away---that maybe some part of himself understood that.

George knows that it won’t be easy to put the past behind them. Knows they will have to take this slow and be more open and honest than before, knows they will have to work. But he believe it will be worth it to at least try.

He sighs at himself in the mirror before drying his hands and heads back out into the bedroom. Alex is walking around the room with the intensity of a bustling hostess. Alex has thrown his bag on the bed furthest from the AC ( _“I know you hate being really hot at night.”_ ). He’s being overly clear that he understands that today doesn’t mean anything, that he has not, by any means, had any other nefarious intention than to do this thing for George without expectation of anything in return, that---

“Alex.” George interrupts softly, stopping Alex in his tracks. “It’s great. You’ve done great.” He pauses. “You’ve been really great.”

He walks to him, throwing his own bag on the same bed as Alex’s, and gently grabs his hands. Alex’s breath catches, and George lowers his head to capture his mouth in a soft kiss as he squeezes their hands together. 

“You smell like horse.” Alex comments, filling the silence as his face flushes.

“So do you.” George hums. “Do you wanna get a shower?”

“No, you can go first, if you want.”

George doesn’t look away, but insteads, bows his head a bit, and raises a brow. Alex almost chokes on his own tongue.

“Oh. _Oh_. Um. Yeah, no, that sounds…”

“If _you_ don’t want to, don’t let me…”

“No, I want to!” Alex practically shouts. “I mean, yeah. For sure. Just. Let me grab some stuff from my bag.”

George nods, moving to do the same. He heads to the bathroom and dumps his shave bag on the counter before beginning to strip out of his clothes from the day and dumps them on the ground. He starts the shower and turns as he hears the patter of another joining him.

Alex stands in the doorway, completely naked and shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other. 

“C’mon,” George says, removing the last of his clothes and kicking them behind the door. “Don’t want to waste the water.”

He holds the glass door open for Alex and makes room. It’s a big shower though, roomy enough for the both of them and George motions for Alex to get under the water first, since he actually _has_ hair to wash.

Alex moans involuntarily as he leans his head back and George positions himself behind him, handing the shorter man his shampoo. Alex thanks him as he pours a dollop on his hand and begins to lather it up, and George shifts a little back to give him more room. He tries to just relax and breathe in the steam of the shower, enjoy as their enclosure warms and his head clears and George half closes his eyes, breathing in the scent of the heat and Alex’s shampoo. He feels his dick twitch, on it’s way to filling out, grazing against Alex’s ass in front of him. George hears his breathy chuckle. 

“Same,” He says, and he turns to rinse his head and George can see he’s similarly affected.

They haven’t done this since they started messing around again. ALl of their hookups had been furious and intense, and once they were spent, George would barely even look at him. Foreplay consisted of hands jobs and blowies, with eye contact avoided and George completely focusing on the end goal. There had been no gentle caress, no allowing Alex to run his hands up and down in worship of his thighs as he went down on him, there had been no cuddling when they had finished. There had been no appreciate whatsoever, in what George had been determined to keep a sex only relationship.

But now. Alex’s head is tilted back and his eyes are closed as the water pours over him, rinsing his hair off. George licks his lip, just staring as the smaller man’s skin shines, wet and slick under the bright lights of the bathroom. When Alex opens his eyes and wipes his face, a smirk flickers on his face

George makes his hands into loose fists and begins to drag his knuckles gently against Alex’s skin. AS his hands move up and down, from Alex’s ribs down to his hips, George feels shivers under the ministrations. He mewls softly, pressing himself close to George, into his chest, and George feels the press of smaller hands there.

“God, doesn’t this feel good?” Alex asks softly. “Doesn’t it feel right?”

“Shhhh.” George says. _Don’t ruin it_ , is what he means. This is the closest he’s come to consciously considering doing this again. Alex presses up against him more, and George can feel him against his thigh and he lets out a strangled breath. He grabs onto Alex’s arms.

“Here, wash.” Alex says, suddenly stepping out of the way. George almost frowns but he does need to get clean so he steps in front and reaches for the soap. 

He feels Alex settle behind him. As he begins to lather up, Alex begins to touch him like George was doing a few minutes before, except Alex’s hands stay just at his hip. THey make their way to his half hard dick, and George stifles a moan as Alex takes him gently in hand and begins to fondle him, the occasional stroke here and there. George’s breathing hitches, and his toes clench at the porcelain floor of the stall.

“You’re not helping,” He manages to grind out and Alex laughs. 

“Or aren’t I?”

George chuckles at the snark, low and gravely in his throat. “Fuck off.”

“I’m trying to.”

George drops the cloth he’s been wiping himself down with and it hits the ground with a plop. He’s still covered in suds, but it doesn’t keep him from grabbing hard at Alexander’s hips and pressing him against the cold wall of the shower, pulling a yelp from Alex just before he presses his mouth to his.

He steps back under the water to rinse off, eyes on Alex as the younger man skips out of the shower and grabs for a towel before dashing into the bedroom. Once the remnants of the wash is gone, George fumbles with the showers knobs and follows, patting himself down as well, just enough that he won’t soak the bed sheets.

Alex is waiting for him on the bed, legs tucked under himself as he kneels, one hand on his cock as he rest back on his haunches, his mouth hanging open obscenely. George lowers himself towards the foot of the bed, and almost instinctively, Alex falls backward, legs open in a welcome to the other man. 

George makes a pleasant sort of sound, crawling to settle over him as he bends down and kisses him once more. Alex’s breathing is heavy, fast, but he’s kissing him slowly fully, before then kissing at the corners of George’s lips, or nibbling at his jaw. George feels his fingertips press into his ribs, pulling him closer, can feel as Alex’s heels graze his calves. Alex’s hands run down to his hips, cupping the swell of his ass and soon…

George groans as he feels a finger penetrate him, and he closes his eyes, relishing the sensation. When he looks down, Alex is looking back up at him with a grin, and he slips another in, still dry. 

“Alex…”

“C’mon baby, I know what makes you feel good.”

And the thing is, Alex does. He always has, always has has that thing about him, some kind of intuition into what really is gonna make George squirm and keen, and George clenches around him for a moment as Alex plays with him before withdrawing his fingers. And George, embarrassingly, knows he can’t fight the pout that briefly crosses his face. 

“Get on your back,” Alex urges, and George, basically mindless at this point, complies. He lays out, arms stretched at both sides, and Alex crawls to the edge of the bed and bends to his bag on the ground. When he pushes back up, there’s a plainly labeled bottle in hand.

“Can I ride you?” Alex asks, breathless, and George can only nod as he pushes himself up a little and leans against the pillows. It doesn’t take long for them both to work Alex open (because George is nothing if not a team player), and one or two strokes to George’s length before Alex lowers himself onto his lap with a whimper.

“Oh, George…” Alex whispers, closing his eyes as he settled. He pressed his hands down onto George’s firm abdomen for leverage and begins to shift his hips around and up, and George grabs onto both sides of his ass to steady him. 

They haven’t fucked like this yet, not since they started sleeping together again. This whole summer it’s been quick and furious, torrential and impersonal; but now, George stares appreciatively as Alex began to work hard and faster on his lap, mewling every now and then, wet hair dripping behind him onto George’s thighs.

“God…” Alex breathes. His head drops back and his mouth is open; George can’t take his eyes from his face. He removes a hand from where it’s keeping Alex in place so that he can administer slow, languid strokes to his length. It stops the younger man in his chanting, and Alex’s voice breaks as if he’s about to cry.

George can feel the itch and warmth in the pit of his stomach, can feel the crescendoing sensation down low. He frees his other hand to grab onto Alex’s wrist where he’s still pressing down on George’s abdomen, and Aex responds only by lacing his fingers with George’s.

George’s other hand is still loosely wrapped around Alex’s cock. His motions have picked up speed, and he can feel as Alex’s dick twitches and dances as he alternates the intensity, or as he begins to try and move his hips as Alex does more of the work. HIs own breathing is growing more shallow, more drawn out and he begins to see black pin pricks in his vision, and he forces himself to swallow because here it is, and he feels Alex grab his hand harder, and he comes, spending inside Alex with a moan, squeezing his eyes shut as his hips buck up involuntarily as Alex rides him through it with little gasps and moans. George doesn’t let up on his own work and shortly after ALex comes as well, spending all over his own stomach, and George’s hands and chest.

George immediately pulls him down, ignoring the mess sandwiched between the two of them. They’ve freshly showered, but they’ll need another one between the sweat and the jizz and the lube.

“That was…,” Alex begins, his voice muffled as he presses into George’s chest. “That was _awesome_.”

George’s chest rumbles as he chuckles, and Alex rolls to the side of him, but stays close, an arm resting in the mess. Alex laughs softly. “We’re disgusting.”

“I don’t mind it,” George says quietly. He doesn’t get up right away; he grabs Alex’s hand and massages it as he stares, rubbing at his knuckles and joints, and Alex presses a kiss against his shoulder and shifts so he pressing into his side. 

Eventually, George gets up. It’s too late for another shower, he declares, so he instead he grabs a washcloth and wipes the both of them down so they’re bare of any kind of mess, and he turns the light off in the room before falling back into bed. He slides in behind Alex, who is half on his side away from where George lays, his arm already tucked under a pillow as his lids droop. George gets close and Alex grabs his wrist and pulls him closer, so that he’s flush up against his back. He grinds back against George, both of them still naked; the skin on skin contact is such a fucking comfort to George, he doesn’t even realize how much he had missed it.

Alex snores softly, tucked into George’s chest, back to his place as the little spoon in George’s arms

As sleep closes in, a memory of Lawrence finds him first, one of the last time he'd seen his brother before his death. George was playing cornerback for the Army and it was the week of the big game against the Navy. Players were allotted so many tickets and as George spoke to his brother on the phone, ticking off the names on his fingers, there was an awkward silence when he finished. He had said his other siblings, made sure Lawrence and his wife and children had tickets. Lawrence cleared his throat.

“What about your mom?”

George snorted. “well, she hates football. She hates that I  _play_ football. She hates that I joined the Army instead of the family business. And I haven't spoken to her since her birthday.”

“So you think excluding her and inviting everyone else is gonna help things?”

George snorted again. “You hate Mary, Lare.”

“She’s your mom, George.” He'd snapped, surprising George. “You are better than this. But if you're determined to sink to her level, then she can have one of ours. We’ll leave it at will call for her…”

George had balked at that, had grumbled that, _fine_ , he would leave one for her. “But it will be the waste of a seat,” he’d added petulantly. He had been able to imagine his brother’s eye roll perfectly.  

On the day of the game, Lawrence had showed up on the sidelines just before kickoff to share words of encouragement. George had been so excited to introduce him to his coach, who knew all about George’s hero worship of his brother, but Lawrence pulled him aside before that could happen, and gestured into the stands. George followed the head tilt and his mouth dropped open.

His mother, wearing a dark, navy blue sweatshirt with the yellow word ARMY emblazoned on the front, sitting with a smile next to his niece and nephew and sister in law as some kind passerby took a picture. He’d turned to Lawrence when he felt his brothers hand end up on his shoulder.

“Sometimes,” Lawerence had said softly, without any hint of condescension. “If you can be brave enough to let them try, people will surprise you.”

The memory fades as the last vestiges of consciousness slip away. George can’t help but smile a little as he closes his eyes and when Alex mewls a little in his sleep, George tightens his grip. Lawrence is still teaching him things, 20 years gone. Alex curls closer.

What a surprise.  
  



End file.
